Google's Driverless Car Draws Political Power

See one of Google's self-driving cars, which the Internet giant has been developing since 2009. While the self-driving technology won't be available for years, the company hopes such vehicles will revolutionize the way humans get around.

By

Amir Efrati

Updated Oct. 12, 2012 3:14 p.m. ET

Marilyn Dondero Loop, a Nevada state assemblywoman, remembers being skeptical and concerned of possible dangers with self-driving cars when a Google Inc. lobbyist first approached her last year.

But then Google introduced Ms. Dondero Loop, who chairs the assembly's transportation committee, to people who had ridden in its self-driving cars and showed her a video of one stopping when people crossed in front it.

More

"That was an 'aha' moment for me," said Ms. Dondero Loop, whose committee later introduced a bill paving way for legalizing the vehicles on Nevada streets that was quickly passed into law in June 2011.

Google has taken the same inspirational playbook to other states, working with a network of local lobbyists and in-house policy experts to woo legislators with demonstrations and rides in its exotic cars.

It has scored legislative wins in Nevada, Florida and California, and there are now similar bills before lawmakers in Hawaii, New Jersey, Oklahoma and the District of Columbia.

Google has been revving up lobbying efforts with legislators nationwide to build support of their proposed driverless car. WSJ's Amir Efrati reports on Google's efforts to pass legislation in support of autonomous vehicles in several states. Photo: Getty.

In the process, the Mountain View, Calif., company is building its credentials as an astute political operator. Google has been "pretty savvy" at navigating state capitols, said Frank Douma, a transportation-policy author and associate director at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey School of Public Affairs. With its self-driving cars, Google "knew what they were doing by moving forward in Nevada" before approaching bigger states, he said. "If you blow it in the first state, you've really got problems."

Success at legalizing self-driving car technology has broader implications for Google. Skills learned from lobbying state lawmakers could aid other endeavors that will require local policy-making, including the potential expansion of its Google Fiber Internet and TV service into markets dominated by cable companies.

Self-driving technology won't be available for years and it's too soon to tell whether robo-cars become a huge moneymaker for Google. But the state-level efforts are laying the groundwork for the expected creation of federal regulations governing autonomous vehicles, say people familiar with the technology.

Overall, Google spent nearly $9 million in the first half of 2012 lobbying in Washington for a wide variety of issues, including speaking to U.S. Department of Transportation officials and lawmakers about autonomous vehicle technology, according to federal records, nearing the $9.68 million it spent on lobbying in all of 2011.

It is unclear how much Google has spent in total on lobbying state officials; the company doesn't disclose such data. Leslie Miller, a Google public policy manager, said, "We don't have a diagramed, master plan" for passing self-driving car legislation nationwide. The goal is to establish "parameters of what would allow that idea to get to the market in a very thoughtful way," she said.

Google began testing self-driving cars in 2009 under engineer Sebastian Thrun, who had previously worked on the technology with Stanford University faculty. Google co-founders
Larry Page
and
Sergey Brin
pushed Mr. Thrun to perfect the technology, which allows cars to drive themselves with the aid of lasers, cameras, and other gear.

In most states, autonomous vehicles are neither prohibited nor permitted—a key reason why Google's fleet of autonomous cars secretly drove more than 100,000 miles on the road before the company announced the initiative in fall 2010.

Last month, Mr. Brin said he expects self-driving cars to be publicly available within five years. Autonomous vehicles are safer than human drivers, and the technology could prevent accidents, help disabled people get around and reduce traffic congestion and gas consumption, he said.

A Google self-driving car on the streets of Washington, D.C. in May.
Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Google's Mr. Brin has said the company is looking to partner with automakers who could implement Google's technology and that it wasn't interested in manufacturing its own cars. However, a person with direct knowledge about Google's initiative said the company has considered being involved in manufacturing self-driving cars.

Google's effort to make the cars legal began in 2010 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. There, Anthony Levandowski, an engineer on Google's car project, met with lobbyist David Goldwater and discussed the hurdles to legalizing the cars and how the bigger, more closely watched legislature in Google's home state might be a trickier place to start.

Mr. Levandowski later agreed Google should give Nevada a try, partly because the state's aging population might benefit from self-driving cars and it was close to California, said a Google spokesman.

In January 2011, Mr. Goldwater approached Ms. Dondero Loop and the Nevada assembly transportation committee about proposing a bill to direct the state's department of motor vehicles to draft regulations around the self-driving vehicles.

"We're not saying, 'Put this on the road,'" he said he told the lawmakers. "We're saying, 'This is legitimate technology,' and we're letting the DMV test it and certify it."

Following the Nevada bill's passage, legislators from other states began showing interest in similar legislation. So Google repeated its original recipe and added an extra ingredient: giving lawmakers the chance to ride in one of its about a dozen self-driving cars.

"We had it going 70 miles an hour," recalls Jeff Brandes, a Florida representative who sponsored the state's autonomous-vehicle bill, which passed in April of this year. "It feels like it is a better driver than you are."

In California, an autonomous-vehicle bill became law last month despite opposition from the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which includes 12 top auto makers such as GM, BMW and Toyota. The group had approved of the Florida bill.

Dan Gage, a spokesman for the group, said the California legislation would allow companies and individuals to modify existing vehicles with self-driving technology that could be faulty, and that auto makers wouldn't be legally protected from resulting lawsuits. "They're not all Google, and they could convert our vehicles in a manner not intended," Mr. Gage said.

But Google helped push the bill through after spending about $140,000 over the past year to lobby legislators and California agencies, according to public records. The company also touted the self-driving technology as a way to prevent accidents and save lives.

"That has bipartisan appeal," said
Alex Padilla,
a state senator who sponsored California's bill.

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com.